


FLUX. HISS. WELT. GROAN.

by kit_marlowe



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, GUYS im sweating over this fic, M/M, Slow Burn, Vampire AU, Vampire!Damen, goth vampire energy, it will get sexy later do not worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-07-10 19:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15955907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kit_marlowe/pseuds/kit_marlowe
Summary: ...the hunger raged inside of him, claws tearing. Screaming. ... He had gotten used to the scent of blood. But this... this was unlike anything else. Laurent's blood was a drug, and Damen had stumbled into addiction.Damen was turned into a vampire six months ago, and has been attempting to live his life as normally as possible, living with his roommate Nikandros. And it's surprisingly going well, until he meets a peculiar man at a bookstore whose blood seems to sing to him.Laurent, plagued by nightmares of his brother's death, lives alone in an unfamiliar city, in an unfamiliar apartment, and works at a bookstore despite not needing the money, perhaps only to keep himself sane. The last thing he is in the mood for dealing with is a beautiful and infuriating vampire named Damen.





	1. spell

**Author's Note:**

> *blows dust off ao3 account* This fic was extremely spontaneous. 
> 
> [\+ The title is Chelsea Wolfe lyrics ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITFiX5Qqlk) I recommend listening! big sexy

 

 

When Laurent was a child, he dreamed of rose gardens. And sometimes, he still did.

He would dream of afternoon sunlight filtering through the spring trees. Warm, golden breezes, and the lush grass of the gardens of a place he once called home.

The dreams were at times more painful than the nightmares.

Oh, the nightmares, the ones of teeth and tearing, of dark red, the ones that caused him to thrash nearly nightly and wake shivering and sweating. Those were an obstacle. A problem to step around and quiet. To be shaken off like a bad fall and swept beneath the rug.

But those rose-garden dreams, they lingered, and ached.

Laurent did not allow himself such fantasies, and he blinked several times to clear the latest from his head, turning his gaze from the window of his seventh-storey apartment. He tucked his pale hair neatly behind his ear, and pulled it over one shoulder. The words on the pages of the book in his lap swam before him, forgotten in the jumbled mess of his mind.

There would be no reading, with his thoughts choking him like this. Besides, he would be late for work if he continued lounging uselessly about.

He stood, and padded slowly across the living room and into the small kitchen, pouring himself cup of coffee--black. And then he went about putting on his shoes--black--and his coat--blue, dark enough to be black.

He did not have time for dreams.

 

Damen never used to dream of blood, but now it was always in the back of his mind. A quiet humming, a lowgrade fever that slowly burned. That was the thirst. Blood wasn't only a dream, but his reality.

But he couldn't kill.

His backpack slung over one shoulder was filled with heavy, silver canisters of donor blood taken from the local hospital.

It was said that killing would become easier with time, but he didn't believe that. He also didn't _want_ that to be true. He didn't want to suck the life out of other people, but it was his only option, even when he went around the killing part. He was still dead.

Not that you could tell by looking at him. Really, he'd never looked more alive. His skin glowed golden and his hair was soft, the dark waves more obedient. Even his jawline was better. His fucking _jawline._

His eyes were a problem, though. He had several sets of brown contacts lying around his place, but he felt like they never quite concealed the bloody red tone of his irises. Nikandros said they looked fine, but he still worried.

Rain fell from the sky, and he looked up. The drizzling dampened his face.

"Dude."

Damen glanced over at the familiar voice. Coming down the sidewalk toward him was Nikandros, his roommate and incidental best friend. He was wearing a raincoat like any self-respecting person, his hands shoved into his pockets, and his hair in a messy bun beneath the yellow hood. Damen was just getting wet.

"What's in the bag? Or should I ask."

Damen hefted the backpack a bit higher on his shoulder. "Look, it beats... other options."

"I know, I'm just messing with you." Nikandros smiled.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, gesturing at the rain that had saturated the city streets. Most people were walking around with umbrellas or raincoats or some combination. It was dreary as hell.

"Looking for you, dumbass," he said. "I texted you like thirty times."

Damen pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, watching a few small water droplets land on the screen. Oh. "You want to go to a bookstore?"

"It's for my grandma," Nikandros explained quickly. "She likes reading and her birthday's in a few days and--"

"Aw, Nik," Damen said, before Nikandros could go off about whatever was stressing him out, at the moment. Damen could just reread the thousands of texts if he needed clarification. He smirked. "I knew you had a heart."

 

 

The bookstore was way across town, in more of an upscale kind of area--probably not where vampires punctured necks, but Damen couldn't be sure. After all, he'd been killed not too far from here...

Ugh. Not thinking about that.

At this point, Damen was decently accustomed to being around humans. Of course, the scent of human blood was unbearably and undeniably delicious, and at first it had been hard--very hard--to not kill his roommate. But he'd gotten used to it.

It was still enticing, sometimes, if he was particularly hungry. Now was luckily not one of those times. Now, it was perfectly safe to enter a taxicab and enter a two-floor bookstore.

Though inside, there weren't very many people. There were a few sprinkled about, of course, roaming up and down aisles, ascending the creaky staircase to the floor above, but it was generally empty. The rainy day likely kept the majority of them at home.

But rainy days were the only ones Damen could leave home without sizzling to ash beneath the sun. Being nocturnal was miserable, but at least cloud-cover worked, too.

"She said she wanted this new book," Nikandros was saying as they strode through the store like they knew where they were going, which they didn't. "I don't even know what it's about, but I'm not gonna ask. I think it's a mystery."

"Do you know where we're going?" Damen asked, glancing down aisles they passed and looking for anything that hinted at a mystery section.

"No."

They stopped walking. Nikandros pointed out a service desk nearby that was probably intended for people like them waltzing in looking for a grandma birthday present, and they headed toward it. In general, it was a nice store. Independently owned, and on the second floor there was a nice area for reading, which Damen admittedly had utilized once or twice.

He suddenly stumbled, because the man behind the counter was precisely his type.

Blond hair brushed his shoulders, and his chin was resting on his fist, long fingers curled loosely. A gray sweater draped over his lithe form, and when they stopped in front of the counter, he glanced up from a book to reveal brilliant blue eyes.

 _Beyond_ Damen's type.

The man raised his eyebrows in what might have been boredom, or just disdain. "Can I help you?" It didn't sound like a question.

Nikandros began talking, unaffected by this fae whose eyes slid to Nikandros's animated face, though his own expression showed little change.

Damen read his nametag. _Laurent._

He felt the first itch in his throat.

An itch that fell over the edge into burning, and Damen found himself reaching up a hand to brush his fingers over his neck. They were cool against his skin, but offered little relief. There was no reason for him to be so, so starving. He had drank the last of his blood supply last night.

Still, the hunger raged inside of him, claws tearing. Screaming. He couldn't kill the man here. Or could he? No, he didn't want to ever have to kill anyone in front of Nikandros. He didn't want to kill anyone, at all! But morals suddenly didn't matter. Damen tore through possibility after possibility, all revolving around how to _drink Laurent's blood._

There were other people, of course. People who would see, and people who would scream. But that could be dealt with. Damen was a vampire--nothing stood in his way. Nothing.

Laurent's eyes slid to Damen's face, and the thoughts evaporated.

He looked mildly disgusted, probably thinking Damen was strange for staring at him, so Damen blinked, and looked away.

But the scent of Laurent's blood was woven in his mind, tangled up in his soul. It was the song that sirens sang to crash ships. It was... It...

Damen found it in himself to move. He took a step back, turned around, and left the bookstore in strides he tried to keep from becoming a sprint.

Outside, the rain fell harder, but he let it hit him, let it fall cold against his face, as he sucked in the fresh air of the polluted city. He had gotten used to the scent of blood. But this... this was unlike anything else. Laurent's blood was a drug, and Damen had stumbled into addiction. It was a spell. It was a curse, and it owned him.

 

 

So, Laurent went home, and did not think about the man from the bookstore.

That was his plan, but not exactly what happened, because all Laurent could do was think about him. Of course. He had been confusing, and infuriating in his confusing ways, but he was also very beautiful, and Laurent didn't know if that made thinking about him better or worse. It might have been the reason Laurent was doomed to ruminate in the first place.

No. Laurent was not so pathetic as to see a beautiful face and spend the next ten days and nights falling onto furniture and sighing distantly. He'd only been mildly stung by the way the man had stared and stared before suddenly launching himself from the entire store, as if Laurent were the most vile and shocking thing he had ever encountered.

He walked home at quarter-past-ten p.m. with the man's face in his mind. The rain poured with more ferocity than it had the rest of the day, which only seemed fitting for his mood. He had to walk five blocks. It wasn't many--too little to justify a cab. But it was five blocks.

The rain drummed on his black umbrella and soaked his boots.

He hated this part.

It was a considerably upscale and crowded part of the city, and people could be found along the sidewalks even into the late hours of the night, even in the downpour. And he was extremely confident regardless that his fast stride and the scowl on his face would deter anyone from attacking. While he did not look like the type to fight back successfully, he did look like the type to scream and stomp and gouge eyes.

And he would certainly do all of those things. What people never realized was that he was also capable of the former, as well.

Auguste hadn't left him entirely defenseless when he died, after all.

Laurent didn't know what kind of animal had killed his brother, sharp teeth gnashing only at his neck.

But when Laurent met a woman's blue eyes from the shadows, he felt like he had an idea.

The woman stood unassumingly beneath a streetlamp, leaning her back against the post. She wore a long, black trench coat, impervious to the rain that dripped from it, though her blonde hair was slicked at either side of her head. She was a lioness, lurking in the shadows, and Laurent was the little gazelle. And in a terrible way, she almost looked like Auguste.

No.

She looked like _Laurent._

But her eyes, surely Laurent's eyes were not so strange. They were what captured his attention, and held it in a clawing grip. They were blue eyes. But not exactly. Laurent looked at them and saw that they were blue, but it was in a way he knew was false--in a way that he knew was his mind fooling him to make sense of something probably nonsensical. The more he studied them, in the wan yellow streetlight, the more he came to the conclusion that they were really purple. Contacts?

It did not matter. Because suddenly, the woman smiled, and her eyes weren't a concern anymore.

It was the worst smile Laurent had ever seen, and it happened at the moment that he passed her. He realized, belatedly, that she was smoking. And she raised her cigarette to her lips as he walked swiftly away. Shivers ran over his spine the entire way home.

 

When Laurent arrived at his apartment, the door was unlocked. Great. Dread stirred deep within him, replacing the lingering fear from the lion-like woman in the rain. When he pushed open the door, his body primed for an attack, he found the lights on.

The scent of baked goods wafted from the kitchen, and music played from the tinny speakers of a cellphone. There was a teenager on his couch.

Laurent set down his dripping umbrella with a bit too much force. "How did you get in here?"

"I picked the locks," said Nicaise.

Naturally. Laurent sighed, and slid off his coat, hanging it by the door. His hair felt frizzy from the rain, and he still felt scrutinized by the man in the bookstore. And the strange woman. God, everything was strange and terrible and tiring. He wanted to shower--not deal with his cousin who was clearly experiencing the height of his rebellious youth. Not that Laurent could blame him.

"You're aware this is considered breaking and entering," he said.

"Yes," said Nicaise, like Laurent was stupid. "But I was hoping you wouldn't call the cops on me."

No, Laurent wouldn't. If he was going to call the cops on anyone, it was going to be his fucking uncle, who languished in leaving bruises on his adopted son and his nephews.

When Auguste was old enough, he moved to the city and took Laurent with him and became both brother and father. Laurent longed to do the same for Nicaise, but he still wasn't sure how to go about it without being tried for kidnapping.

He didn't have to ask to know why Nicaise was here.

"How did you get here?" he asked instead, once he had taken off his soggy boots. He stopped a few feet from the couch, arms folded over his chest. Laurent's sweater was gray. Nicaise's was black.

"Train."

"And then?"

"Cab."

"And the money?"

"Robbed your uncle."

Well, at least he was honest.

"I'm making brownies," Nicaise added, as if that cleared his multiple crimes. In a way, it did.

 

 

On Friday, the sun had set hours ago, and beyond the doors and windows of the bookstore the sky was black, and the streets were filled with artificial light strong enough to induce dizziness. It was eight, and the store closed in an hour. Laurent did not expect anything much of the remainder of his shift.

He hadn't seen the man from Wednesday for the rest of the week--not that he expected to. It wasn't as if he were a regular, or anything. He'd only come in with his friend for whatever the friend had been looking for. Some overhyped new release... Laurent didn't particularly care.

Until one of the heavy, double doors opened, and the beautiful man was once again under the fluorescent lights.

Laurent felt his face heat from where he knelt on the floor, and he proceeded to throw himself more into organizing the shelves of poetry. Why did he call him _the beautiful man?_ Why not, _the strange man who stared at him in disgust?_ Or _the man who probably wants to do him bodily harm?_ Well... he was beautiful. It was undeniable. But irrelevant.

He couldn't possibly focus any longer on the task at hand. The task at hand had now become watching the beautiful man in Laurent's peripheral. He seemed to be lost. Laurent was certainly _not_ going to offer him assistance. He was going to just... camouflage himself into the poetry...

There were now feet beside him, and legs, and Laurent followed the legs up to find a torso, and a face, framed by whorls of dark hair.

"Hi," said the beautiful man.

"Leave me alone," said Laurent.

The words only brought a deeper flush to his face, the heat creeping down his neck and surely showing up pink. He could feel his pulse thrumming hard in his head. Why had he said that? Why not a brisk, _the store will be closing in an hour?_ His words had only succeeded in making this personal.

The man shifted from one foot to the other, not exactly in a nervous way. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his black jeans, rocking back on his heels impishly. He was wearing black sneakers, and there was something oddly charming about it. But Laurent wasn't fond of using the word _charming_ to describe him.

Even if it was the... truth.

"I'm glad you're here," the man said. His voice was... lovely. Low and unobtrusive in the quiet store. "I was here last week with my friend--I'm Damianos. Well, just Damen."

Laurent didn't answer. Mostly because he didn't know how.

"You're Laurent," he added.

He felt his lips part soundlessly. And then, with narrowed eyes: "What's your _problem?_ "

The man-- _Damen--_ was probably flirting with him. Or he planned on doing so. That, Laurent wouldn't tolerate. He wouldn't. And he was now extremely aware of the way he was kneeling before him.

Damen seemed to realize this dynamic at the same moment, and crouched down beside him, instead. "I... wanted to apologize," he said, "for the way I... you know. Stormed out of here last time we met."

A rush of indignation poured through him. "You think I _care?_ " The words exploded from his lips, in a hissing whisper. There was no shouting in the bookstore. "You can hardly call that 'meeting.' I was only doing my job, which was to assist your friend, and I don't recall saying a word to _you_ at all. Your rude exit had no impact on me whatsoever--so don't even think yourself important enough for me to _consider_ , let alone require an _apology_ from. The only way you have impacted me, now, is by wasting my time."

Damen had raised his eyebrows. He only seemed mildly surprised at the scolding. It almost looked as if he could have been smirking, just in a small change about the corners of his mouth--oh, nice lips. No, his lips were not important tonight.

"But you _do_ care," he said, the smirk fading, replaced by an expression of unfortunate sincerity. "And I _am_ sorry."

Laurent looked at Damen. "Is that all?"

He let out a slow, heavy breath. "No, actually, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to get coffee."

Each of the words felt like a precise blow to the gut. Laurent felt his eyes widen, betraying him. Getting coffee with _Damen?_ Why? _Why?_ Like... like coffee, like a... date? A date kind of coffee? What the _fuck?_

"I'll take that as a no," Damen said.

"No!"

The protest was almost embarrassing in its eagerness. Laurent took a breath and steadied himself, though it didn't do much for his fluttering pulse. He found himself looking away from the beautiful man, tucking his hair behind one of his ears self-consciously. He wanted to accept the invitation... but why? Why should he? His only interaction with Damen prior had been shared eye contact that made Laurent take a very hot and cleansing shower. He should be standing and spitting at him for ever looking at him in such a way.

But he wasn't, now.

But perhaps he was only disguising it.

Laurent found that he didn't care which it was. Perhaps he was misconstruing all of it. He took another breath, and looked up at Damen with a slight nod of his head. The safe option would be to reject him, and continue on with his life, but he knew that would only mean going back to his apartment, possibly with Nicaise still there, possibly with Nicaise gone again.

"Okay," he said.

And Damen's dark eyes lit up and they were lovely. He stood, a tall, muscular yet graceful god of a man, and extended a hand down toward Laurent.

Laurent ignored it, and hauled himself up on his own. He turned, fixing a few books on the shelf, and fighting against a ridiculous smile. He almost felt... excited. Foolishly excited. He fought against the giddiness. "I get off in an hour," he said, and peeked at Damen.

"Then I'll be back to pick you up," Damen said, and then a moment later, Laurent was watching him leave. Watching his fingers card absently through his hair, watching the length of his strides, watching his ass as he walked.

Laurent checked the leather watch around his wrist, exposed where the sleeves of his sweater had been pushed up a fraction. 8:22.

38 more minutes.

 


	2. wail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder that originally, I posted chapters 1 as 2 separate chapters, but they're now just together in chapter 1 that u just read. This chapter is brand new as of 2/19/19 :)

Damen very clearly came from money, and he knew this.

His car was a shiny black, a smooth shape, and the lack of hard edges was just translated into more money spent. Laurent didn't seem all that bewildered by it, nor particularly impressed. Damen opened the low door, and Laurent and his blond hair slid into the passenger seat.

He couldn't believe he was doing this--taking the same man on a date that he'd almost killed the other day. He seriously had almost killed him. Dead. And yet now he shut the door behind Laurent, and got in on the other side, and the engine was soon rumbling smoothly to life.

Of course, it was dangerous to be in a car with Laurent. It was an enclosed space, and being stuck with the scent of him and his blood made Damen feel as if he were having difficulty breathing. He fought against the feeling. He silenced the hunger's thrashing and wailing, but it was really just muffling. To actually silence it would be to feed on Laurent, finally, and... oh, he couldn't think about that. Each breath he took was a battle, a struggle against suffocation in the sweet scent.

Damen glanced over to watch the streetlights dance across Laurent's face, lighting different planes and stretching shadows.

He didn't seem to notice Damen looking. Or he was pretending not to.

"Music?" Damen suggested.

Laurent nodded. "Is there anything in here?" he asked, pressing the button to switch on the radio. A CD was in fact playing, and it filled the car with the mixtape Nikandros had made him a full two weeks after his birthday.

"What band is this?" Laurent asked.

He felt his face heat a bit with light embarrassment. Sharing music was such a personal thing. It somehow felt inappropriate for a first-date. Not that any of this was appropriate.

It was _Affection_ by Cigarettes After Sex, and Damen told him so. But by the time the song truly began, they had already arrived at the coffee shop. It disappeared into quietness when Damen shut off the engine.

He really should have thought the date through better. He couldn't drink anything but blood--was he supposed to suggest coffee and then proceed to not order anything? Order something but not drink it? It would be weird if he didn't get anything, he decided as he held the door to the shop open for Laurent.

It was a decent place--his favorite, within a ten block radius. Warm lighting, and a comfortable atmosphere with colorful furniture and lights strung about. It was also like there had been an indie movie explosion at some point and they were still cleaning up the debris, but he didn't mind. The music was unobtrusive and not terrible. He approached the counter, and ordered a plain coffee because that seemed normal, and he got it to-go so that with the lid on, Laurent wouldn't notice the fact no liquid was actually disappearing when he pretended to drink.

"What are you having?" he asked, glancing back at Laurent who stood by him at the counter.

He just waved an indifferent hand. "I may get something later."

God damn it.

Damen accepted his to-go coffee when it was handed to him, and he took his seat by the window, across from Laurent. The coffee was at least good for warming his hands. Vampire hands. So cold.

He watched as Laurent unwound the pale blue scarf from around his neck, and his breath caught. The action only made his scent that much more prominent.

"You don't want anything to drink?" Damen asked, in an attempt to take his mind off of the scent of blood.

Laurent rolled his shoulders in a gentle shrug. A lock of his hair slipped from behind his ear. "I didn't want you to pay for me," he said, "and you would have insisted." He gave Damen a little smirk, and then stood, resting his scarf on the back of the chair. "I'll be back in a moment."

Damen watched, for a moment stunned, as Laurent wandered back up to the counter. He hadn't wanted Damen to pay for him? But why not? Was it his pride, his refusal to seem reliant?

Damen took this chance to dump his coffee into one of the plants on the windowsill. Problem solved. He should probably never suggest coffee again, though what else was there? It was his go-to date idea, and what relationship wasn't complete without a few coffee dates? Or dinner dates, for that matter?

Not that... it was going to be a _relationship._ Not that Damen was even capable of ever having a relationship anymore, now that he was what he was.

It was still going to take a lot of getting used to.

There were a lot of things he couldn't do, now, such as see his parents or brother ever again after about ten more years of not aging. His only friend was going to be Nikandros, until Damen got to watch him die, too. Lovely. Immortality seemed like a pro to vampirism until he began to think of the entire earth's current population perishing in a century.

Laurent returned, thankfully, back to the table, and he took his seat across from Damen. He had a mauve pink mug in front of him that looked like it contained tea, set on a matching dish.

"So," said Damen, "you work at the book store?"

Laurent ran his thumb over the lip of the mug. "This is the part where we start asking each other questions, hm...?"

"If you'd like."

"Yes, I work at the book store," Laurent said, his eyes flitting back up to Damen's. A shock of blue. "I live in apartment about five blocks from there. Where do you live?"

"A place on 17th."

"Penthouse?"

"What makes you say that?"

Laurent sipped his tea, gazing out through the window at the city street beyond. He set the mug back down onto the dish with a _clink_ before he answered. "The sports car and the expensive clothes."

What? How could he tell Damen was wearing expensive clothing? It wasn't exactly flashy or anything. Sneakers, jeans, t-shirt underneath a jacket that was nice, but not _obviously nice._ His face flushed a bit--though why should he feel embarrassed?

"Why are you blushing?" Laurent asked. "You're embarrassed for being wealthy? Come on. What do you do to earn such a _fortune?_ Are you a doctor? You seem a bit young. Perhaps you're a musician. An artist. An actor?"

"It's inherited," Damen said, feeling suddenly pried open. And the way Laurent looked at him with lightly masked pride made a flicker of anger light inside of him.

"No shame in that. My situation is similar."

He found that hard to believe, and he snorted. It made Laurent raise a pale brow at him.

"You don't believe me."

"You work in a bookstore."

"Because I'm bored."

"Attempting a modest life?"

"Who says I am not modest?"

"Or preparing for your parents cutting you off?" That was always a fear Damen had, though illogical--they would never do such a thing. To his brother, perhaps, but not to him. Poor Kastor.

Laurent was smiling like he knew something Damen did not. "I doubt that will be an issue."

He lowered his eyes again and drank from his mug of tea, and Damen pretended to take a drink from his coffee cup. He had the urge to uncover Laurent's secrets, to dig beneath the layers of cool smirking and blue eyes and find what he was truly like beneath. But it was only a first date. There would be time for the uncovering to happen later... if Laurent would see him again.

Which wasn't a good idea.

It was dangerous enough to have Nikandros so close to Damen-- _living_ with him, even. He couldn't endanger anyone else by letting them get close to him, let alone this beautiful man with his beautiful hair and his beautiful voice and his... blood.

Damen inhaled deeply the scent of coffee. It didn't help.

"You have nice hands," he said, looking at the mug of tea Laurent held.

"Thank you. You have nice eyes."

The words were so casual and plainly said by Laurent that Damen almost didn't realize he was being complimented. He blinked a few times in surprise. "Thanks."

But then, everything shifted.

Damen noticed her over Laurent's left shoulder, sitting in a corner of the cafe. There was nothing in front of her to eat or drink, but there she sat, a magazine open in front of her that she likely wasn't even reading. Her eyes flashed to Damen's face, purplish and gleaming in the low lights. Her hair fell in golden waves over her shoulder, smooth where it was exposed by her sleeveless dress.

"What?" Laurent asked.

Damen's gaze fell onto Laurent, then back at her, then back at Laurent. They looked undeniably and horrifically similar. It was literally a nightmare.

"We have to go," Damen said. Yes. Of course. They had to go.

Jokaste was here.

They had to _get out._

He was on his feet, and he was taking Laurent by the arm, hauling him up as well and tugging him in the direction of the door.

And Laurent twisted his arm with expert quickness, breaking free from Damen in an instant. "I haven't even paid for the coffee," he said, eyes wide. "What's going on?"

Damen shook his head. "We have to go. Right now." He grabbed Laurent's scarf off the back of the chair, and took a moment to secure it gently around his neck. Laurent was cringing away from the touch. If he hated that, then he was really going to hate what was coming next.

Damen lifted him off the floor and kicked open the door of the cafe, hauling him outside. Once on the street, he threw the man over his shoulder, and ran.

"What the _fuck?"_ Laurent shouted at him, struggling in his grasp. "Put me _down!"_ But Damen was much stronger than any human could dream, and Laurent's struggles would get him no where.

All Damen knew was that they had to _get away._

He could feel Jokaste chasing after him, though she wasn't. He could see her sliding her fangs into Laurent's sweet neck, blood staining the blue scarf.

How had she found Damen? He had been so careful, but apparently not careful enough. He should have changed his name, or something. He hadn't been thorough enough. Clearly, moving from Akielos to Vere hadn't been enough to keep his Maker off his trail--he should have known better. He should have known Jokaste would really go after him. And now, she not only had him, but she knew about Laurent. And if she got ahold of Laurent, she could use him as leverage to make Damen do whatever she wanted.

He didn't know what she wanted.

He stopped, when they returned to his car, and he put Laurent back down onto his own two feet. He watched the man sway for a fraction of a second before schooling himself. "You're fast," Laurent said. His expression was guarded.

Of course, Damen was _fast._ Vampires were incredibly fast. Incredibly strong. He should have considered that before hauling ass out of the cafe with Laurent in tow, but he couldn't worry about that, now. He could explain something later. That it was Laurent's adrenaline that made Damen's speed seem inhuman. He scanned the street behind Laurent. It was dark, but empty.

Jokaste was not there.

Jokaste was somewhere.

"Get in the car," said Damen, going around to the driver's side.

Laurent scoffed. "You think I'm going to get in a car with you after you dragged me bodily from a cafe?" He swore that Laurent's voice trembled, but he couldn't be sure. "What the hell was that?"

"Laurent," he pleaded. "Just get in."

He studied Damen's face from across the roof of the car, icy eyes narrowed, but then at some point, he seemed to give in, and he opened the passenger door and slid inside. Relief rushed through Damen.

Inside the car, he started the engine, and wasted no time tearing off from the curb, flooring it down the street. The engine roared, the sound filling the space between them, and _Affection_ continued playing through the speakers.

Damen tore a hand through his hair, when he was finished punching through gears. His heart still pounded, and beside him, Laurent was sitting as close to the door as possible, his body angled to stare at Damen.

"So," Damen said after a long moment of catching his breath. "Someone's after me."

"What do you mean?" Yes, there was a note of fear to Laurent's voice. Very subtle, but either the mask was slipping, or Damen was learning to see through the cracks. "Someone is after you? Who? What do they want? I swear, Damianos, if you have now involved _me_ in this game, I--"

"I'm sorry," said Damen, cutting off the threat and likely saving him from having to come up with one. He heard Laurent's quiet, trembling exhale. He had expected reassurance, but Damen couldn't offer him any.

The notes of the song sang low and quiet in the car, smoothing the rumbling of the engine and attempting to mend the tension between them.

"What's happening?"

Laurent sounded innocent. For a moment, Damen considered telling him. He considered telling him everything--that he was a vampire, a cursed creature, turned beneath the moon by a lioness of a woman he thought he could trust. That he was from Akielos, and he had intended on staying and setting up a life there until his life was ended.

"I wish I could tell you, but I... can't."

"You can't."

Damen huffed a sigh, turning a corner sharply, before coming to a stop. "You wouldn't even believe me if I did, trust me."

"Tell me, and we'll see if I do."

Damen looked at him, in the red glow of the traffic lights. "I'm a vampire," he said with a little quirk of his brow.

"Don't play." The words were spat out, devoid of amusement.

"Do you want me to take you home, or would you prefer I not know where you live?" Damen asked.

Laurent seemed to consider it, but only for a second. He glanced out of the window, perhaps to see the street name, and then a moment later, the door was opening, and then slamming shut.

Damen watched Laurent stomp off down the street, but he didn't stop him. He couldn't. Rapidly, he calculated how far they were from the bookstore, remembering how Laurent said he lived five blocks from it. He wasn't far from home, at least.

There would be plenty of time, though, for Jokaste to swoop in and kill him on his walk home... Not that she would. Damen knew that she wouldn't kill Laurent tonight. Her games were much longer, and much more brutal. She would twist and twist her knife, until the game was slowly bled dry, before she would cut the deathly vein and put an end to it. When she killed Laurent, she would wait until she could exact the most pain possible.

 

 

It came to him in teeth. The image of fangs, the feeling of blood smearing, and the metallic scent that accompanied. It came to him in darkness and prickling fear along his spine. A graze against his neck. A finger pressed at his mouth. Laurent parted his lips and tasted.

The dream twisted, and it lashed at him, howling within his head. It pounded at him and threw him down into the dark, where terror wrapped its talons around him, cutting into his body and slicing through his mind. He opened his mouth to scream, but it was soundless.

The hand of Damen grasped Laurent's chin, and forced him to look at him. The deep dark garden of nightmares. The moon poured over Damen's sweet skin.

" _Vampire._ "

He heard the word in Damen's voice from the car, red light reflected in his dark eyes.

Laurent woke, screaming.

He shivered beneath the blankets of his bed, and slowly he sat, pushing sweat-soaked strands of hair out of his face. Another nightmare... Of course. He leaned his head in his hand, staring at the darkness of his bedroom as his mind slowly, sleepily turned.

He'd never had nightmares about _vampires_ before--it had simply been inspired by Damen's ill-timed joke in the car... Ugh. What had that been about? Laurent had felt watched the entire walk home. Who was after Damen...?

He didn't know, and it would do him no good staying awake trying to piece together information that he didn't have.

 _"Vampire._ "

He could hear it still, the simple word said so casually, like it meant nothing. It did mean nothing. _"You wouldn't believe me,_ " Damen had said.

Laurent hadn't believed him. Because Damen hadn't told him anything. He had joked with Laurent and said that he was a fucking vampire! He shuddered, as the dream resurfaced within him. It really had not been so different than his other nightmares. Always of blood and ripping fangs. His brother's death.

He hadn't seen Auguste die. He had only looked at his body afterward, prying his uncle's fingers from where they had covered Laurent's eyes. Then: Auguste's neck, torn and bloodied. Red spilled down the front of him, and it pooled messily on the pavement.

Animal attack. Laurent thought of his brother being killed by dogs. He dreamed, over and over, of such a fate. Auguste's wounds weren't unlike that which a vampire might inflict.

Though vampires weren't real, and his nightmares meant nothing, in the end.

Laurent rubbed at one of his eyes. His mind drifted to the date from earlier. If it could even be called such--it was extremely short-lived, and now he feared he would never be welcomed back into the shop again, after not paying. But it _had_ been a date. Damen _liked_ him... Laurent shoved away the thought, shoved away the stupid teenage crush feelings that tried to bubble up inside of him. _Damianos_ was some freak who was being hunted by someone, probably having to do with some sort of gang-related crime shit. Laurent was uninterested. He had enough to deal with as it was. Nicaise had gone home, apparently, but Laurent wished he hadn't. He wished he could steal Nicaise away from his uncle and keep him here in the apartment with him. Safe.

Apart from the ending, the date had almost gone well. Damen was... charming... Laurent couldn't forget the feeling of time seeming to slow, as Damen draped the scarf gently around his neck. And Laurent got to watch him pour his coffee out into a plant, which had inspired him to change his order to tea at the last moment, if the coffee was truly that terrible.

A cold wave of fear washed over Laurent, as his body caught onto the hints before his mind was able to grapple with the truth.

Damen could have spilled out his coffee because he couldn't drink his coffee because he was a vampire and vampires could only drink blood which coffee was not but Damen didn't want Laurent to think he was strange so he disposed of the evidence while he thought Laurent was not looking, followed later by his hefting Laurent as if he weighed nothing and running down the street fast enough for buildings to blur.

"Okay," said Laurent.

He slowly exhaled.

He got out of bed, and went over to his desk across the room, switching on his laptop. It was time to do some vampire research, and to hopefully talk himself out of this insanity.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u for reading <3 leave me ur thoughts if u love or hate this or anything <3333 I'm having a super fun time writing it :) Why is this just twilight??


	3. writhe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a while to put up but the good(?) news is i've started a playlist for this fic! [here it is](https://open.spotify.com/user/cesdelicesviolents/playlist/7pHWbooxh7HFkcEZXVi3lS?si=Pwgl7ZB8RCaZyxguVhB9-g) it's a work in progress but it's mostly what i listen to as i write the chapters

Laurent sat on the kitchen counter and turned the gun over in his hands.

Some of his research had suggested that bullets couldn't kill vampires, but other sources noted that vampires could be killed by basically anything humans could, and that stakes were a myth. One of these things had to be the truth, but there was only one way to find that out, and the thought made his stomach turn.

He had never used the gun, though it was always loaded, and always slipped just beneath his bed for ease of access. He never went anywhere without a knife hidden on his person somewhere, either. Most of it was admittedly paranoia, but there could someday be a reason. He didn't trust his uncle, and he didn't trust what he would do to Laurent if he found him. And if Nicaise were ever to end up dead because of him, well... Laurent would not put himself above manslaughter. He wouldn't.

He thought again of his dreams of his old home, of the sunny gardens, of the library with all of the plants and the comfortable chair by the window.

He wanted to use each of the bullets for each of Nicaise's bruises, each of his own. But he would not have enough.

Laurent took a drink from the mug of coffee he had sitting beside him, making a face at the taste. There were two shots dumped into it.

There was his paranoia and his rage over his uncle, but there was also the aching fear of whatever had killed Auguste. Ever since, he had been afraid that he would be next, and he still may be. He'd always had a feeling it wasn't an animal that had killed his brother.

Now, he knew it was a vampire.

_Vampires..._

The thought alone made him dizzy. It had not quite sunken in yet that vampires were, in fact, real. Mythical creatures--monsters--prowling the night in search of humans to seduce and murder.

Perhaps he had always on some level known that they were real. All of his dreams of teeth and of blood...

He wondered if the vampire still lived. Thriving off of Auguste's blood, just another kill among many. Hundreds. Thousands. He wondered if it had been Damen.

He wasn't above manslaughter. He wasn't above vampire hunting.

He went to work like everything was normal, because it was. It was normal. Laurent's life had always been some kind of fucked up, and the new addition of vampires to the equation hardly made a difference.

 

 

"So, let me get this straight. You went on a _date?_ "

"Yes."

"With the guy from the bookstore who you wanted to murder more than you've wanted to murder anyone ever before?"

Damen pouted. Putting it like that just made it sound even more fucked up than it already was--Damen wasn't some psychopathic serial killer. He was just... a monster that he previously thought only existed in goth novels and halloween costumes.

"I know, I know," he sighed, drawing his legs up onto the couch. He sat on the opposite side of it as Nikandros, who was eating some extreme vegan shit. "Is this fucked up?"

"It's extremely fucked up," Nikandros confirmed. He stirred at the vegetables with his fork. "Are you seeing him again?"

Damen just shrugged. "I don't know." Probably not--this was too dangerous of a game to play. Besides, to see Laurent again he would have to return to the bookstore and simply hope he was working. "I don't have his number or anything."

Nikandros raised an eyebrow at him. "You didn't even exchange numbers? Dude."

"I was distracted."

"By his blond hair or his awful attitude?"

"By Jokaste." Damen's eyes flicked to Nikandros' face.

"Oh, no," he said, and he set down the bowl which meant that this was serious. "No, no, no. Jokaste? Your Maker, Jokaste?"

He nodded, confirming the unfortunate truth. It was bad enough that Jokaste had found him, but she had found him with _Laurent._ It only increased the danger--Laurent didn't even know how much danger he was in. Damen had barely scratched the surface in his explanation.

Even if he had told Laurent he was a vampire, it's not like he had believed him.

Damen tore his fingers through his hair. "I've put Laurent in danger just by _being_ with him."

Nikandros exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "And yet... you might see him again."

" _Maybe_ ," he groaned. "I don't know. I want to... Besides, Jokaste has already seen me with him--he's already a target. The only thing I can do now is either keep him close to me and protected, or wait and see what kind of fucked up shit she'll do to him just to get to me."

"You're going to protect him from _Jokaste_?" Nikandros looked at him with disbelief. "Damen. You couldn't even protect yourself from Jokaste. We had to flee the country just to get away from her."

That was true, but Damen was trying to ignore that. In the end, he was powerless against his Maker. She had the power over him by blood to make him to whatever she wished. It was basically hopeless.

 

 

Work passed slowly. Laurent was a jittery mess the entire time--though he kept it to himself. No one had asked if there was anything wrong with him, yet, which was a decent sign.

He didn't have Damen's number, and Damen didn't have his, nor did he know where Laurent lived, so really, the only way he could contact him would be if he came into the bookstore. Laurent didn't have any form of social media to be hunted down on, either.

A part of him wished he could tell someone--anyone--about this. But there was no one. Long ago, he might have confided in Auguste, but if Auguste were alive, this wouldn't be happening.

Well. Not as horrifically, anyway.

It wasn't as if he could tell Nicaise. He wouldn't burden him like that, and besides, all of Nicaise's text messages were read by Laurent's uncle. And he was the last person Laurent wanted involved in this.

He couldn't let Damen kill him. There would be no one to protect Nicaise, and no one to avenge Auguste. He had to stay alive.

 

 

Damen waited outside of the bookstore, loitering around the sidewalk like an absolute creep. But he had to talk to Laurent. He had to tell him what the hell was happening. This was hardly how he wanted things to go after asking a cute guy on a date...

Damen leaned against the wall of the building, reading _Twilight,_ which Nikandros had suggested he get from the library to learn more about vampirism. But Damen couldn't concentrate on the words. He read the same paragraphs over and over and took ages to move onto the next page, but he couldn't help it. All he could think about was how much time was left until the bookstore closed, and Laurent would come out, and Damen could proceed to ruin his life.

Laurent didn't deserve having his life ruined by vampires. But Damen comforted himself with the fact that it was going to happen, either way.

 _"What the fuck are you doing?_ "

Damen spun at the sound of a familiar, sharp voice, shivers ticking up his spine. And then he smelled the blood. The sweet blood of dreams and angels.

Laurent stood a pace away, beneath the streetlights. There was cold fury in his eyes, and something else. Something that had turned them bloodshot and glassy. The way he held himself was entirely different. Before, there had of course been a bit of defense to his posture, the defense of one used to keeping on their guard around strangers, but this was different. The way he stood now seemed like he was prepared for a fight, poised for the attack.

Damen found himself wondering who was the predator.

Laurent knew.

It was written all over his face, all over his body--if Damen didn't know any better, he would consider him drunk. But he knew it wasn't alcohol that turned him sloppy and desperate. It was sleep replaced by fear. It was the same hollowness that had come over Damen when he had first learned of vampires, when Jokaste came into his life, when he became one of them. When everything had changed with a bit of blood.

Laurent had a knife aimed at Damen's throat, his eyes and the sleek metal glinting with the same silver. Fear stabbed into Damen's chest.

"Tell me why you killed my brother," Laurent spat.

He was not expecting that. "What?" Damen's defenses lowered briefly, as confusion took the place of the adrenaline. "What do you mean?"

"I know what you are." The words were vile. "You're a _vampire._ You said it yourself. I saw you dump your coffee into the fucking plant."

"You saw that?"

"Obviously."

"I didn't even know you had a brother," Damen said. "I've never killed _anyone._ "

"You are a terrible liar, Damianos. Your eyes tell me everything." His knuckles were white around the knife, his aim unwavering. "Don't pretend you're not a fucking killer."

Dark shame lapped at Damen's mind like an icy wave, but he pushed it back. This was not about that. "Laurent," he said. "We need to talk."

"You stay the fuck away from me!" Laurent snarled. "Don't come here again. Don't even look at me. Stay the fuck away from me--I will kill you without _hesitation._ "

He watched Laurent walk away, heading in the opposite direction, the direction Damen knew now to be that in which Laurent lived.

"You'll need a stake to do that," he called. A tip.

And then Laurent whirled around, hurling the knife at him. It cut fast and hard through the night air, and at the last moment, Damen ducked. But as Laurent stalked away, and he looked for the knife, he found it sticking out of the wall, just where his head had been.

 

 

Laurent went quickly home. His pulse pounded between his ears, and all he could think about was if Damen had been able to hear it--each beat of his heart, each push of blood through his veins. Laurent was all too aware of it. He had never thought of blood as something that could be desired in such a way. He had never thought a lot of things, before meeting Damen.

He should have grabbed his knife, or not thrown it in the first place. He had others at home, but he was currently weaponless on his walk, which did nothing for his nerves. Not that holding a little knife would likely have consoled him any.

Anyway, it was a relief to finally arrive at his building, though the emptiness of the street late at night felt oppressive and sinister. Empty, of course, except for a woman standing at the top of the stairs to the front door of the building.

She leaned, in much the same way she had beneath the streetlamp, against the wall beside the door. She was dressed in the same black trench coat, smoking a cigarette. This time, her hair was not dampened by the downpour.

Laurent walked up the steps and was determined to ignore her and continue inside, but she stopped him with her voice.

"How is Damianos?" she murmured.

She didn't look at him, her gaze lowered, but Laurent paused, glaring. Who was this woman? Being so near her was discomforting, but he didn't know why. His limbs all ached to run but he silenced the urge.

"Who are you?" Laurent muttered.

"You mean you cannot tell the resemblance?" said the woman. "It's all in the eyes."

She lifted her lashes, then, and her gaze fell upon Laurent's, and he felt his blood rush faster. Her eyes were red. A shock of crimson, even in the darkness of the street. Red like blood. Nightmare eyes. Hell eyes. Vampire eyes.

She knew Damen.

"What do you want with me?" Laurent asked. His voice didn't waver, of which he was proud, but unsurprised. He had spent many years training away detectable fear, though with his lack of sleep, he wasn't sure how well he was currently managing.

"Nothing but a game." The softest smile had come over her lips, faint but for a subtle quirking of her mouth.

Her hand came forward, smoke trailing through the dark, and her fingertips brushed his chin, her thumb running over his lower lip. "I don't know what Damianos sees in you."

Laurent ripped away from her, shoving her from him, which he knew was a poor choice, but she did nothing to exploit it. Nor did she stumble. She fell back a graceful, loping step, and the smile grew.

"You stay the fuck away from me!" he shouted. "I'll scratch your fucking eyes out! Leave me _alone!_ "

The woman laughed, as Laurent's body carried him inside without his realizing it. The door was coming shut behind him, shutting away her soft laughter, and Laurent threw himself into the elevator.

The doors shut and he mashed the button for his floor, muscle memory. The body remembers.

He leaned against the railing that lined the walls of the elevator, attempting to catch his panting breaths, though he couldn't. He could only stare wide-eyed at the dingy elevator floor, as seconds ticked by like hours, until the doors eventually slid open.

She was not on the other side of them.

Nor was Damen.

Nor was his uncle.

Laurent moved through the hall to his apartment like something incorporeal. The floor felt faint beneath his feet. He thought of the woman's red eyes. Were Damen's the same?

He slammed the door shut behind himself and locked it.

And he made to perhaps take off his coat, or his boots, but lost track of the action halfway through and instead fell to his knees in the tiny foyer. His arms wrapped around himself as weak, breathless sobs wracked his body. It was an immediate descent into hysterics.

The strange woman--the vampire woman--knew Damen. She knew Damen was hunting him--was she, too? Were they working together?

But in the car home from the cafe, Damen had said that someone was after him. That had been apparently the whole reason Damen had thrown Laurent over his shoulder and ran insanely fast from the shop. Perhaps the woman was the one after him.

Or perhaps there was someone else. Or perhaps there was no one else, and that whole display at the cafe had been just that: a display, an act, a ruse to drag Laurent in and make it seem like he ought to subject himself to Damen's protection.

He wasn't fucking amused by this. He wasn't fucking amused... This was fucking agony. He needed to talk to Damianos.

 

Laurent went to work still coffee-fueled and still under the guise of being fine, the following day. But as he came to open the front doors of the bookstore, he paused, his eyes caught on something glinting in the morning sun on the ground just beside the doors.

It was the same knife he had previously tried to throw into a vampire's skull. Damen must have put it here for Laurent to recover--how gentleman-like. But the knife came with a tiny piece of paper. It was lined notebook paper, folded up, and when Laurent finally opened it in the back room of the store, he found that it contained nothing but a phone number. This shift would pass slowly. From the page, ten digits tempted him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall chapter 4 is bouta get a lil spicy i'm gonna perish but first i gotta... hmmmm finish it.. thank u for reading i luv u


	4. shiver

Death required blood.

Damen studied the glass in front of him. Just a small glass, like a shot of liquor, except it was what sustained him, what kept him living, though he wasn't. His heart beat in his chest. His blood ran through his veins. But his eyes were crimson and his skin was cold and he was dead. Dead. Dead. He rocked the glass from side to side, watching the dark blood move within. It was donor blood, of course. Taken along with other canisters from the hospital. That was his life, now, if he didn't want to kill.

The thought of fresh blood was tantalizing, of course. The tiny dosage of stale blood kept him alive but barely. It was just enough to function. The bare minimum that sated the thirst. For a while.

The light in the living room buzzed quietly. Nikandros was in bed, so he wouldn't have to witness Damen's unfortunate ceremony. Sacrifice. Fix.

He closed his eyes and drank.

Glass still in hand, he found himself curling onto his side across the couch, skin pressed against the sticky leather he normally hated but currently couldn't care less about. The blood was slight, and not from the vein, but it was nonetheless human blood, and it was nonetheless intoxicating. He felt his pulse strengthen, his own blood liven. A sense of warmth returned to him within, though surely the temperature of his body remained unchanged. But he felt warm, and for a while, all was well, and the thirst was forgotten.

He blinked his eyes open.

Thank God Nik wasn't subjected to seeing him like that. He sighed, and set the glass down on the coffee table, beside the canister. He wanted to unscrew the lid and down it all, but he had to ration if he was living this kind of shitty life.

There were other vampires that simply hunted. _Hunted._ That was what it was called. As if humans on the streets were simply quarry deep in the woods.

Damen ran his fingers through his hair, and licked a smear of blood from his thumb. Jokaste hunted. Jokaste hunted and Turned and lived nocturnal. She had apparently been attempting to start a coven when she had Turned Damen. Something he had blocked out and had never understood in the first place. There had been others, Turned by her, strange siblings connected by blood and a curse to him. But he didn't know them. He had escaped.

But Jokaste had found him. Damen was tied to her, whether he liked it or not, bound by this fucking darkness that prevailed and prevailed even as he tried to live morally. But vampires could not be moral.

He thought of this just as, from the pocket of his coat across the room, his phone began to ring.

 

 

Laurent closed his eyes and listened to the ringing.

His heart thudded. On the fifth ring, he opened his eyes, and they felt raw with the need to cry but he couldn't muster the tears. Like a child, he wished he weren't alone in the apartment. But he knew it was for the best Nicaise was not here--not at a time like this.

But Nicaise was surely under circumstances that were hardly better... No. Laurent couldn't let his thoughts become occupied with that at this moment. The ringing had abruptly stopped, replaced by a crunch of static.

"Laurent," said the voice on the other line.

"Damen," said Laurent. A breath.

He didn't know what was supposed to happen next. Damen had left him the number and Laurent had called. Laurent wanted nothing to do with him. Laurent was afraid of him. Laurent was afraid of the woman with the red eyes. Laurent was afraid of everything.

He just had to pretend that he was not.

"What do you want?" His voice sounded stronger, though he didn't feel strengthened by any means.

Damen took a moment to respond. Laurent studied the blankets of the bed in front of him, studied the weave of the topmost one.

"I'm sorry," was what he eventually said.

Which Laurent didn't know how to respond to. Anger--no, rage--boiled beneath his skin, and he gripped the phone tight. "For which part?" he spat. "Killing my brother, or sending that blonde creep after me?"

"I didn't send Jokaste after you."

She had a name? Of course she had a name, and of course Damen knew it. "Stay away from me," Laurent said, though at this point, it hardly sounded like a threat. It sounded like a breathy plead, a last-ditch attempt at begging for mercy. He wondered if the humans Damen killed usually begged for their lives.

"If you want to kill me," he said quietly when the line was silent, "then do it. Don't... toy with me. You are playing a game I want no part in."

"I don't toy with you," Damen said, nearly cutting him off. "Just... let me see you again, okay? I can... explain all this shit, and we can... try to figure something out."

Laurent didn't want to figure anything out. He didn't want the explanation. He wanted Damianos out of his life. "You're an idiot if you think I'm seeing you again."

"We can go to another cafe. With people, if that makes you feel better."

"So I can watch you dump your coffee in a plant, again?" It wasn't exactly a refusal. But he didn't like that it wasn't.

He heard a sigh from the other line. "I can pick you up tomorrow night."

"Day."

"As much as I'd like to meet you in the middle, I can't really go out in the sunlight."

"Meeting me in the middle would mean sunset." Oh, he hated this. He hated that the words were almost joking, and he hated that he wasn't refusing outright.

But he couldn't deny that Damen perhaps had not personally killed Auguste, and that Damen was not necessarily involved in a plot to kill Laurent with that woman.

He couldn't deny that Damen was alluring.

Because he was meant to be alluring, wasn't he? He was a vampire, made beautiful by the transformation, and charisma was a weapon as vital as fangs. Laurent wondered what Damen's fangs would feel like sunken into his neck. He wondered how badly it would hurt. He wondered if Auguste had screamed.

"Laurent?" Damen asked.

Oh. He had not been listening.

"What?"

"I'll pick you up at sunset tomorrow. In front of the bookstore or something."

"Take a cab," Laurent said. He would not be getting into Damen's car, again.

 

 

Life required blood.

Jokaste studied the boy through the blinds which he had foolishly left open. She was perched on the fire escape across the street, watching him speak on the phone.

Surely, he spoke to Damianos, and when Jokaste stretched her hearing, past the sounds of the city, past the pane of glass that separated them, she could hear his voice. Technologically muffled, but the voice of her Turned, nonetheless.

It was a mistake to have made her his enemy, but she supposed she hadn't treated him as gently as she could have. She had turned him too soon.

Laurent, however, was an intrigue.

 

 

Laurent was very, very stupid.

He knew this, as he stood leaning against the wall of the bookstore, hands shoved into his coat pockets. The wind bit, and he tucked his chin a bit more into his scarf. He shut his eyes, a brief reprieve from scanning the street like bird of prey. A moment later, he opened them. It was not sunset, it was dusk. There was a difference, but the difference apparently didn't matter to Damen. Or there had simply been too much light.

A car pulled up to the curb, and the vampire stepped out of it.

For a moment, Laurent's guard fell. He had forgotten what it was like to look at him. He, with his long-lashed eyes and his hair that looked soft. What would it be like, to card his fingers through it?

He knew it was only because Damen was a vampire that he felt such a... pull toward him. But consciousness of it only eased it so much. It was still a pull. It was still magnetic. Laurent still got in the backseat of the car.

He didn't know what cafe they were going to, but he kept track of the streets they went down, tracing them over and over in his head, a process made easier by Damen remaining wordless where he sat beside Laurent.

Damen was looking out of the window. As the dusk darkened, the streetlights began illuminating all of the sharp angles of his body. Something in Laurent, though pulled so tight, softened.

"Won't you say anything?" Laurent said quietly.

Damen turned his head to look at him, but he couldn't read his eyes. They were dark brown, hidden still behind contacts, even though Laurent knew the truth. He supposed it was for the benefit of the driver, or whoever served them at the cafe. Laurent tried to imagine them red. It was almost impossible.

"Not here," he said. His voice was low. And like velvet.

"Not even hello?"

"Hello."

Laurent snorted, turning his gaze away from him and gazing past the windshield of the car, instead.

They went a few blocks farther, though it took longer than necessary with all of the traffic. But it was comforting, in a way. More traffic meant more people around. More witnesses. Damen wouldn't kill him in front of everyone.

Damen slid the driver a stack of cash, wound up with a rubber band, and Laurent rolled his eyes. Why couldn't he just use a credit card, like any other self-respecting vampire? He watched the driver's fingers work as he flipped through the money to ensure it was all there. And then he found himself standing on the curb, watching the car disappear with all of the others on the street, and he turned to look up at Damen.

"Now, will you talk?" he said. "I mean, I already know you're a vampire. What else is there?"

Damen looked at him for only a moment before removing his gaze. He headed toward the front doors of the cafe. "Let's go inside."

Laurent loped behind him. "You said someone was after you. You meant that woman, didn't you?"

Damen paused in the doorway, glancing back at Laurent. "There's more than that," he said.

Absolutely not content with that answer, Laurent followed him into the cafe. It seemed like a pretty interesting place, but he couldn't care less about the menu. He ordered a black coffee, and slid into a private booth across from Damen.

This was the worst second date ever.

Not that it was a date by any means, of course. Laurent drank his coffee but he couldn't judge it properly. He could only think of the vampire sitting across from him.

"Talk," he suggested.

"I need to apologize to you," Damen said. But the words only make Laurent grit his teeth together. "For... involving you in this. It... it wasn't my intention."

Laurent could have laughed. "You asked me on a date."

He watched a crease form between Damen's dark brows. "I know," he said. "I know... I just hadn't expected this."

"You mean that vampire woman."

Damen nodded. "Jokaste is... my Maker."

His Maker? Laurent could assume what the word meant, but he didn't like the implications. According to his research, nothing good could come from that. "She's the one you made you?" Another nod. "When?"

"About six months ago."

That was... much more recent than he had expected.

"She's dating my brother, too," Damen said. He was looking down at the table. "She has him wrapped around her finger..." He sighed deeply. "She wanted to create... some kind of coven. Or cult, honestly. Where she could be a queen, of sorts. I think her plan was to have it spread completely through all vampires, so she could eventually rule over the entire race."

What the fuck? This couldn't be real. This sounded like a story, or a myth. It sounded ridiculous!

"You look... amused."

"Why did she turn you?" Amusement was the last thing Laurent was feeling.

"To be a part of her cult, or whatever," Damen said. "She would need to start with loyal followers for it to spread..." He looked mildly disgusted. Part of Laurent wanted to reach over the table and touch his arm comfortingly. Another part wanted to laugh. Another part wanted to cry and run.

"So, what? She's found you again?"

"I don't know _how..._ " He seemed truly exasperated, the words dragged out of him. His brown eyes were on Laurent's. "I completely cut her out of my life. I thought all ties were severed, and she had no way of finding me. I even left the _country._ I wanted to start a new life in Vere, living on- on blood I get from hospitals. I wanted to live as normally as I could. No killing people. Nothing crazy. My friend Nikandros even came with me..."

"But now she's back."

"Now she's back."

Laurent dropped his gaze to the cup of coffee in front of himself, studying the reflection of the golden lights in the dark liquid. He had little interest in drinking it. But it kept his hands warm.

There was always the chance Damen could be lying about all of this. But if he wasn't... Well, Laurent couldn't tell if that was more or less dread-inducing. If he was truly on the run from Jokaste... it wasn't too different from Laurent being on the run from his uncle. Not totally.

"I'm afraid this is something we have in common," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

He couldn't tell if he regretted bringing up this topic of conversation or not. He never spoke about this with anyone. But then, he never spoke about anything with anyone. "My uncle," he said, then realized he didn't know how to continue. "He raised my brother and I after our parents died."

He had expected Damen to interrupt him with his input by this point, but he hadn't. Laurent tentatively continued, "Technically I have a restraining order against him. Like that means anything. His- his adopted son Nicaise still lives with him. I want to... to rescue him, and have him come live with me." As Auguste had done for Laurent. "But he has his ways of turning things in his favor in court."

He sneaked a glance at Damen's face, only to find his brows furrowed. He was studying the table near Laurent's hands. "Why did you get a restraining order?"

"Physical abuse," said Laurent. A trained response.

"I'm sorry."

Damen still seemed to be contemplating it, though, beyond the condolences. Laurent took a moment to actually drink his coffee. He hardly tasted it. His skin prickled with the knowledge of having just told Damianos that he'd been abused as a child. It felt like he'd just exposed a weakness.

"So, what about Jokaste?"

He watched a slight frown come over Damen's mouth. "I don't know what she wants from me, at this point," he said. His eyes flitted up to Laurent's. It felt much too intimate, after what Laurent had revealed, and he gave in and dropped his gaze. "She wants me under her control, I think. And as- as my Maker, she has some control over me that I can't resist. Apparently, it's possible to break from the control in the bond, but... but it's nearly impossible and I- I have _no_ idea how."

"What do you mean, control?"

"If she wanted me to kill you, I wouldn't be able to stop myself."

Oh. Laurent tried not to let that bother him. "Are you afraid she will use me as blackmail?"

"I'm sure she will," he said softly. "She's learned that I care about you, so you're the perfect target to get me to do whatever she wants..."

Laurent lifted his gaze. Damen _cared_ about him? Damen hardly knew him. What had the real reason been for his asking Laurent on that first date? The real reason for his continued return? It couldn't have been simply that he was interested in Laurent like that. He refused to believe that was all.

But he wasn't ready to ask him, either.

He didn't want to hear the truth, yet.

 

 

In the cab Damen looked at Laurent and Laurent looked out of the window and Damen wondered if he hated him or not. Did Laurent truly believe he had killed his brother...? He cringed at the memories that surfaced. The blood, bright red and everywhere. The warmth on his tongue. The pulse that beat low thunder into his head.

_'You are a terrible liar, Damianos,_ ' Laurent had said. _'Your eyes tell me everything.'_

Damen gazed at Laurent in the low light, wondering what it was exactly that Laurent saw in him that told him the truth. What about his eyes? The tinge of red behind the dark contacts? Or the guilt and shame over being alive when others had died, because of him?

Laurent's hair was pale and soft-looking and Damen wondered about trailing his fingers through it. He'd comb it gently between the digits, in another life, one in which they weren't being hunted. One in which they weren't predator and prey.

There was a sapphire stud in Laurent's ear, revealed when he reached up a hand to tuck his hair mindlessly behind it. But beneath the glimmering earring was the inch of skin revealed of Laurent's neck. It was mostly hidden by his scarf, but that little bit of skin seemed soft. Warm. Damen imagine his thumb pressed over it, Laurent's pulse beneath the touch. With his other hand, Damen could cradle Laurent's jaw and tip his head toward him. He could kiss him, like that. With his hands against the warmth of him, the air heavy with his scent.

Laurent's scent was stronger in the enclosed car. Damen found his lips parting faintly, a soft, shuddering breath escaping him as he considered the neck, the blood, the way it would feel to sink his teeth in, to taste, to drink.

_'Don't pretend you're not a fucking killer.'_

His mouth felt dry. He closed it, and blinked, and tore his gaze away from Laurent. Oh, God... Oh, God, oh, God... He couldn't let himself lose control! Laurent's blood was the greatest temptation, and Damen had to resist. He had to. He couldn't give in, he couldn't kill Laurent. Not anyone. But especially not this man beside him in the cab, with his blond hair and his little sapphire earring and his lips like rose leaves. His curved swan's neck and his angled jaw and... his eyes...

Laurent was looking at him in the dark.

The cab had stopped, and Damen was lost in blue. "We're here?" he asked, though it was obvious. They were at Laurent's building.

"Yes." Laurent handed over a credit card to the driver.

The building was exactly what Damen had expected. It was an older building, with a more historical feel to it, though the part of town was notoriously pricey, and it was probably completely redone inside.

"Should I walk you to your place?" he found himself asking. Paranoia was creeping in.

Laurent tucked his card away. "Hoping I'll offer you a drink?"

"Hoping you don't get murdered on the stairs."

"I have an elevator," said Laurent. "This building isn't barbaric... Come see."

He popped open the door, and Damen followed him. Did he trust Damen more, now? Or had his fear of Jokaste simply increased, and he deemed Damen's presence less of a threat in comparison? It was hard to tell. He followed Laurent into the building and into the elevator, where they both stood at either wall, Damen looking at the floor and pretending not to feel Laurent's burning stare.

"You would protect me, if I were attacked by Jokaste?" He didn't sound like he believed that.

Damen glanced up. "I would." He would try. He had no idea what the bond between Maker and Turned was capable of. Could she simply... stop him? It didn't matter what she could do. Damen would find some way to get past it, to get through it.

Silence fell between them, as they ascended floors, until eventually, the doors opened with a quiet bell tone.

The only sound was the heels of Laurent's boots striking the floor as he led the way down the hall. Damen followed a step behind, like a proper bodyguard. But he knew this was all a bit useless. It wasn't like he could always be by his side.

Laurent stopped, turning to face Damen. He couldn't tell if they were at his apartment, or not--Laurent was merely leaning a shoulder against a wall with a painting on it. They were close, he realized. Closer than they had been in the cab, closer than they had been sitting in the cafe. Too close to be safe. But Damen couldn't move, trapped by the scent of the man inches away from him. Trapped by his warmth. Held captive by his essence, a prisoner to his beauty.

"How do I know you're not lying?" Laurent asked quietly. "About Jokaste. All of this."

"You don't."

Damen wouldn't pretend there was any solid reason for Laurent to trust him, because there wasn't. It was only that trusting him was better than not trusting him. Probably.

The only way to protect Laurent was to stay away from him. To feign a loss of interest, or to lose interest truly. But the former was made difficult by the impossibility of the latter.

"Damianos," said Laurent. His blue eyes were large when Damen met them, the gaze attentive. Trained. "What is the real reason you asked me on that date?"

Because Laurent was impossible to resist. Because he drew Damen in with a low, humming pull that didn't let go. Because now, Damen's gaze had dropped to Laurent's neck, again. That white sliver between scarf and jaw.

"I have never... encountered blood like yours," he heard himself say slowly.

His eyes had fluttered shut, and he could feel the softness of Laurent's scarf against his cheek. His fingers brushed along Laurent's jaw, and he could hear the thrumming of his pulse just beneath his skin. Oh, to taste his blood. Just the smallest taste...

His lips brushed the neck before him.

Pain flashed through him, and Damen's eyes flickered open suddenly, as he sobered. What? Laurent's eyes were larger than before, staring up at him, and when he yanked his arm back, Damen realized that Laurent had stabbed him. The blood spread from the wound in his abdomen, and he pressed his hand to it in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Had he--had he almost...?

Laurent fell back a step, and then he was running. He disappeared around the corner of the hall.

Damen leaned against the wall with a soft groan, glancing down at the wound. It wasn't like he would die from it. But it still hurt.

The pain didn't matter, though. What mattered was his loss of control... What if Laurent hadn't had the knife? What if he hadn't been able to stab him--what if Damen hadn't given him enough time? He scrubbed his non-bloody hand down his face, closing his eyes tightly as guilt and shame crushed him. No, no, no...

 

 

Laurent stood on the balcony of his apartment, staring at the city cloaked in mist and shadow. He had been standing here for a long time, likely. Long enough to watch Damianos run off into the dark. Long enough to watch the fog roll in.

He was shivering. It was freezing and he'd just come out here for fresh air, wearing only his sweater and jeans and socks. But now he couldn't bring himself to go back inside. He wanted to be ready, when Jokaste or some other vampire inevitably attacked him. Just as Damen had attacked him.

But Damen hadn't quite attacked him.

But he might as well have.

Laurent lifted his hand and touched the side of his neck, where Damen's lips had been. The contact had sent chills to every inch of his body. In another life, perhaps he would have liked it. In another life, perhaps the next step would have been a kiss instead of teeth tearing into him.

He withdrew his hand, gazing down at it, and found his fingertips coated in sticky, red blood. He flinched, closing his eyes against the sight, and attempted to steady himself, to breathe evenly.

When he opened his eyes, his hand was clean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


	5. crimson

Beneath the blue lights, Damen had come to dance.

He wanted to drink, and drink, and drink. He didn’t drink often, apart from a few drunken escapades with Nikandros and the guys, but tonight, it was what he needed.

It was also what he could never have. He could consume nothing but blood, and the only drunkenness he could find would be through the blood of another, and he would not stoop to that level. Never.

Second best: dancing.

On the dance floor of the club, bodies writhed as midnight trickled by, thrashing like a dark sea. He could feel the low bass rumbling in his chest, rattling, a second pulse. It struck in his veins, and the entire room was at the same precise time moved the same. Breathed into the same. Damen closed his eyes and let himself drown in it.

Nikandros told him that he shouldn’t go. And Damen had told him that he had it under control, that being around so many humans wouldn’t fuck with him, and Nikandros almost let him get away with it.

Damen hadn’t forgotten the feeling of his fangs grazing Laurent’s neck. He had ended up begging Nikandros to come with him.

When his eyes came open, he found someone was dancing quite close to him. Not one of the many sets of shoulders brushing his, but nearly dancing with him. Their hair spilled long and like blood over their shoulders and chest. The man’s eyes flickered open, and met Damen’s, green and sharp and catlike, even in the dark.

A smirk smoothed over soft pink lips, lids fluttering shut again, and then they were truly dancing together.

Damen gave himself over to it, allowing his fingertips to brush the man’s waist, skipping over the soft fabric of his skin-tight shirt. The music was in their veins, possessing them as it possessed each body around them with the same ebb and flow.

Eventually, the song came to an end, and the man’s lips were very near Damen’s ear.

“Come drink with me.”

His voice was catlike, too. Damen found himself lured.

He sat down at the bar with the man with the hair like blood, and ordered them both a drink, while the man flicked his hair over his shoulder and crossed his legs and leaned on the counter.

“Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

Damen’s gaze snapped up to the man behind the bar who was setting down their glasses, only to find his old friend Jord. He hadn’t even noticed him, in some sort of haze when he had ordered.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve…”

Jord didn’t know he was a vampire.

“I’ve been kind of busy, I guess,” he said.

Jord bobbed his head. “Yeah, I get that. You moved here with Nik, right?”

So, he’d been keeping up with Damen’s vague social media updates, then. “Yeah, we got this apartment together for now,” he said. “It’s not a bad place.” Penthouse. Very not bad.

Damen chatted with Jord for a few minutes, a strange guilt rising in him. Jord’s life had remained so typical, of which Damen was somewhat jealous, and somewhat afraid for. Laurent had already been dragged into Damen’s mess of a life, and he didn’t need to drag his old friend into it, too. He was already worried enough for Nikandros.

The red-haired man was looking increasingly bored, sliding an olive off the stick in his drink with his teeth.

Jord had to go when more people sat down at the bar, and the break in conversation only prompted the red-haired man to lean towards Damen.

“You don’t remember who I am, do you?” he said softly by his ear.

Damen jerked away from him, a shiver trickling down his spine. No… Who was he? He did look familiar, now that he had said that. Damen watched him raise an eyebrow, waiting.

After a moment, he appeared to grow tired with that. He picked up his drink again, stirring around the remaining olive.

“Look, either you do or you d—”

“Ancel,” Damen said, a sense of revile building in his chest.

Ancel smiled. “Hello, darling.”

Why was he here? God, Damen should have known something like this would happen. He should have known he would find one of Jokaste’s dogs sooner or later, he just didn’t expect it to be in a club, past midnight, in Vere.

“She sent you, didn’t she,” Damen muttered.

He was quite certain Ancel himself was harmless. He felt confident that if need be he could throw him across the room and through the windows and across the street. Besides, he was still human. The silk around his neck hid the marks of his purpose.

“Au contraire,” said Ancel. “I’m here on my own business.”

“You’re lying.”

He sighed. “Why would I?” he asked. “You already believe Jokaste sent me. I’d really have nothing to lose by telling you if she had. But she didn’t. I’m just here for… fun, you could say.”

Was she here tonight, as well? “Where is Jokaste?”

“She’s been staying in Vere, and some of us have come with her,” Ancel said. He slid the other olive off the stick and gave a shrug of one shoulder. “I wanted a taste of nightlife.”

Damen scowled. He remembered Jokaste’s little group quite well.

It had not been little. It had not been a group.

It had been a cult, and a large one. It functioned nearly as a society of its own, all following their Maker, or the Maker of their Makers, Jokaste.

It all revolved around drinking human blood. Ancel was just one of many whores they kept. He was chained to them in all ways but iron.

Damen doubted Ancel had any true loyalty to Jokaste. He was likely only in it for the money, and because leaving, at this point, would result in his death.

“I’ve heard all about your new pet,” Ancel murmured, taking a sip of the drink.

Damen bristled. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, please. Laurent? Everyone is talking about him. Jokaste is set on some kind of plan for him, for using him. Part of it is to get to you, of course, but she doesn’t function on pettiness alone.”

His eyes narrowed, as Ancel spoke. He knew more—he had to. If Laurent was apparently the talk of their sick cult, Ancel had to know more information about what Jokaste wanted to use him for.

“What else do you know?” Damen muttered.

Ancel tipped his head. “What is this worth to you?”

Oh, he was not trying to get _money_ from him. “Tell me,” Damen spat, his lip curling faintly to reveal his fangs, though he expected Ancel wouldn’t be overly afraid of vampires, at this point.

Ancel merely held out his hand in front of him, palm upward and expectant.

Damen answered with his fingers locked around the man’s throat, instead, slowly increasing pressure. If he wanted, he could crush Ancel’s throat in his fist as one might a rotten fruit.

Ancel knew this. He still remained smug.

“You won’t kill me, Damen,” he said, the words gritted out.

“Oh, you don’t think so?” He squeezed tighter.

“Hey!” It was Jord’s voice. He grabbed either of their shoulders, reaching over the counter. “Can you guys cool it?”

Damen gritted his teeth, and released Ancel’s throat. He wondered if the vice-like grip had hurt. He wondered what exactly was hiding beneath the silk.

Ancel was holding out his hand, again.

Damen placed a twenty dollar bill into it.

Ancel’s gaze dropped to the bill, and then returned to Damen’s face. He didn’t move. Damen added a fifty.

“Please, Damen, how little do you think I work for?”

It took two more fifties until Ancel finally pocketed the cash.

“Jokaste’s coven isn’t the only one that exists,” he said.

Oh, _God._ “What other coven is there?”

Ancel held out his hand, again.

Two hundred dollars later, he continued: “It’s here in Vere.”

In _Vere?_ God, and Damen thought he’d come to Vere to get away from vampire shit. He thought he’d been safe. There was another coven…? How big was it? Who was in charge of it? Just how many covens even existed in the world…? He doubted Ancel knew the answer to the latter question, though. And really, he may not even know any of those answers. He decided to ask something more vital. He slid Ancel two hundred more dollars. He was out of cash.

“What about Laurent?”

“She plans on using him as leverage.”

What? “What does _that_ mean?” he asked. But Ancel wasn’t going to tell him shit without money. He’d made half a grand off Damen tonight. How the hell was Laurent involved in all this? Did he… did he _know_ other vampires?

There was a new scent on the air.

It drew Damen in immediately, senses livening, focusing in violently, and his gaze snapped toward the source.

Through the silk around Ancel’s neck, fresh blood was slowly seeping.

Damen must have reopened one of the wounds. And Ancel seemed to become aware of this at the same moment Damen did, and there was finally the slightest trace of fear in his eyes.

There was fear heavy in Damen, too, but the bright red thirst choked it out.

No, no, no, no, _no, no, no!_ Damen wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t tear off the silk from the man’s neck and sink in his teeth. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t almost kill Ancel the way he had almost killed Laurent in the hallway.

Oh, God, Laurent…

Laurent could be in trouble, tonight. Jokaste could have him now, tied up somewhere, vampires feasting on him, sets of fangs attached to his wrists and his neck.

He stood from the bar, and hurried away, until he found himself in the club bathroom, the big door shutting heavily behind himself and leaving him in the new silence.

He leaned back against the big mirrors in the room, catching his panting breath. It didn’t smell like fresh blood, here. The club music was now quiet, muffled through the door. Another world. Here in the safety of the bathroom, he didn’t have to be a bloodthirsty demon thing. Here, he was just calming down and catching his breath. Alone.

Alone, until the heavy door came swinging open, and a man walked inside. He paid little attention to Damen, while the door shut away the loud music again, but Damen couldn’t focus his attention on anything but the man.

He had come into the bathroom to sit on one of the benches and apply a bandaid to his bleeding finger.

Damen watched, transfixed, as the bead of blood slid down the length of the man’s finger while he unwrapped the bandaid.

He could taste the blood just by looking at it. He could taste it. He could taste it.

He could taste it.

Slowly, Damen became aware again of the muffled music, and the yellowish lights overhead, just as he became aware that now he, too, was sitting on the bench, and the man with the cut finger was lying dead beside him.

No…. No, no, no… He was dead. He was very, very dead, and _Damen had killed him._ Damen had killed someone. No, he was not… he… he had vowed never to kill anyone ever again. He had done so well for so many months. His life without Jokaste was supposed to be peaceful, simple. The man was lying dead on the bench.

Damen was across the room in an instant, locking the heavy bathroom door. No one could come in and witness this shit. How long until someone tried? Everyone was drinking, everyone probably had to piss! How long until someone asked an employee about the locked door? How long until it was opened?

Damen had to get the body out of here.

In the tiny rest area, above the bench, was a window.

He wrestled it open.

He’d parked in a garage not too far. He just had to get to his car without being noticed, and then he could think of something else. He could figure this shit out. His mind reeled, as he tried to remember the lessons Jokaste had taught him about hunting.

He never thought he would have to use them. He never thought he would have to be grateful for her.

He wedged his phone between his cheek and his shoulder, while he hauled the body over his other shoulder, and slipped out the window.

“Hey, where are you? I lost you like twenty minutes ago,” Nikandros said on the other line. Damen could hear the music through the call, just subtly delayed from the bass coming distantly from the building.

“So, we have to go now,” Damen said, while he carried a dead fucking body through an unnecessary amount of back alleys.

“What? Why?” Nikandros answered. He was shouting to be heard. “I just met—”

“Dude we _have to go now._ ”

“What’s going on?”

“Just… meet me at the car.”

And Damen did make it to his car. Eventually. There was a lot of maneuvering around well-trafficked routes, but he fucking _made_ it, and he wasted absolutely no time being victorious and instead immediately shoved the body in the trunk and shut it.

He was literally, _literally_ going to hell.

Damen leaned against the trunk, trying to catch his panicked breaths as he waited for Nikandros to show up.

In the meantime, he texted Laurent.

 

12:55 AM : Hey

12:59 AM : Laurent?

 

He waited impatiently for a response, tempted to send another text, when he noticed Nikandros walking toward him, footsteps echoing in the garage. He seemed slightly winded, like he’d jogged the whole way from the club.

“What’s up, man?” he asked, brows deeply furrowed.

Damen groaned quietly, rubbing his forehead. “I fucked up.”

“You kill someone?”

It was kind of an inside joke they had. Joking that Damen had accidentally murdered somebody. It was in slightly poor taste, but that’s what made it funny. Unfortunately, tonight it was also true.

“I… might’ve.”

“Dude!” Nikandros immediately began glancing about, like he’d see the dead man lying around on the ground or something.

“In the trunk,” Damen explained.

“Oh. What happened?”

God… What _had_ happened? “It’s… a lot,” he said. “Basically, I was talking to this guy and he started bleeding which… you know. So I got the hell out of there and kind of hid in the bathroom, right?”

“Naturally.”

“Well, then this other dude comes in, and he whips out this bandaid because I guess he cut himself somehow,” he said. “And then… I don’t know. I must have blacked out or something because the next thing I know I’m across the room and he’s dead as fuck!”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Well. Now, I have to go… get rid of it.”

Nikandros blinked a few wide-eyed times, exhaling sharply and running a hand over his hair.

“Well, damn. I guess so.”

Damen took a deep breath. He had to keep himself together. Just until he could get rid of the body.

“I’ll take you home,” he said, going around to the driver’s side door and popping it open.

“What? No, man, I’ll come with you. I’ll help.”

No fucking way was Nikandros going to help Damen bury a body.

“Fuck no,” he said. “I know you want to be a supportive friend or whatever, but I’m not getting you involved in this fucked up shit, okay? I can bury a body by myself.”

“Alright, alright,” Nikandros said, quieter.

The not freaking out thing was slowly unraveling.

Damen drove them out of the garage, and headed back to their apartment. And all the way back, he felt like everyone else on the street knew exactly what he had done. Like it was immediately obvious to anyone who noticed them driving.

“There’s a dead guy in your trunk,” Nikandros said, like he just realized it. “Whoa.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Whoa._ ”

Damen glanced at him. Was he about to go into hysterics, or something? “Dude…”

“No, like… it’s cool. I’m just…”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m great. I’m just— _wow_.”

Damen bit his lip. His head was spinning and he felt sick and he just wanted to drop Nikandros at home and pretend this shit wasn’t happening. But it was. He was a murderer, and he has been a murderer, and he would continue to be a murderer. He was a vampire.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t. Damen gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Maybe you should move back to Akielos,” he said. “Seriously. Being around me is dangerous. I don’t want to put you in danger every single day.”

“Hell no,” said Nikandros. “We’re friends. I’m not giving up on you.”

 

 

The road was dark, when Damen drove out of the city. The only light came from the moon, but even that was sparse. It was a cloudy night. The country roads were abandoned at such an hour, not another pair of headlights in sight. Damen held the wheel steadily. He hadn’t lost it, yet. He wouldn’t. He still had a body to bury.

The deed itself was no difficult task. Jokaste had taught him well. And when he pulled the car off the side of the road, tires bouncing along the grassy entrance to the woods, there was no one around to question it. No one to stop and ask if he needed help, or if everything was alright.

Nothing was alright. Nothing would ever again be alright because Damen was damned for eternity.

He hauled the body through the woods.

It wasn’t like he just kept a shovel on hand for this purpose, either. He didn’t go around digging holes whenever. But after he’d hiked out pretty far into the woods, deep into where they were the thickest, where there were no lights from country homes anywhere to be seen in the distance, he set the body aside in the underbrush, and started digging.

First, he tore up leaves and tiny shrubs. Dirt pressed up under all his fingernails. He kept digging. How deep did a hole need to be to bury a body? Enough for it to become a skeleton before anyone came across it? Six feet? He couldn’t dig a six foot hole large enough to fit a man. His hands were already shaking and his fingers already bloody.

He managed the burial in a little under an hour, and soon enough, stood looking down at the dirt under the hazy moon. He wondered who the man had been. Who had he come to the club with? A girlfriend, or something? Friends? Did he have a family? There had to be people out there who would notice his absence, or even mourn it. The city would file him under yet another missing person. Damen would continue living as a dark and dead thing.

He picked his way back through the woods toward the road, listening to the quiet steps of his feet over the frosted over ground. His hands felt sore, bloodied, and he wiped the mess off on his pants, but he wanted to shower. A shower wouldn’t clean him thoroughly. A shower wouldn’t fix what he had done.

In the distance, he heard an owl’s hooting. He was just another night creature, prowling about the woods, though he crashed through the underbrush like prey. He wanted to be rid of the woods. He needed to get out of here, and get home, but he didn’t know what he would do when he returned. At least here, he knew what he was, even if it was terrible. In the city, he would have to go back to pretending.

He fell into his car, pulling the door shut behind himself, and heard the sob escape him before he even felt it build.

It was freezing in the car. If he were human, his breath would have fogged in front of his face, but he wasn’t human and the air remained clear and moony and filled with Damen’s gasping.

Killer. Killer. Killer.

His forehead was pressed to the steering wheel.

Where was Laurent? What did Jokaste want from him? To use him as leverage, with something having to do with another coven in Vere. But what did that mean? Damen should have gotten more information out of Ancel. He shouldn’t have fucking choked him and reopened his wounds and he shouldn’t have escaped to the bathroom without getting Ancel’s number and he _shouldn’t have killed someone._

He was dialing a number he had recently committed to memory.

The roads seemed longer, on the way home, twisting grotesquely in the dark. The black trees leaned in to watch him pass, quiet and waiting. His phone was pressed to his ear, the other line ringing, and ringing.

 

 

Laurent was shivering.

He was sitting on the balcony, though the small space was devoid of any furniture, and he was merely leaning against the wrought iron bars, his knees drawn to his chest. The street below was nearly empty, but for an occasional passing of bright headlights, or a person walking along once, maybe twice. A man across the street had come outside to smoke and then gone back in to his apartment. Laurent stayed out.

It was a cold night. And his layered sweaters and his coat did little against the wind but he continued to sit vigil, unable to bring himself to come back inside. Something told him that Damen would return. And he wanted to be ready for it, but he would not be, no matter how he tried, no matter what plan he came up with. Perhaps he would stab him, again, this time with a sharpened stake. Perhaps Damen would not give him the chance.

He could still feel the press of Damen’s lips to the side of his neck, just above the artery.

Laurent jolted as his phone began ringing in his lap.

He picked it up, his fingers stiff with the cold despite his gloves, and found, of course, Damen’s number lighting up his screen.

No…

He felt it vibrate in his hands, in the vaguely disconcerting pattern it always did for phone calls. He listened to the faint buzzing. Stared at the familiar number. Damen had sent texts earlier, but Laurent hadn’t found it necessary to answer the idle chat of his would-be murderer. Perhaps he should have.

Eventually, the call stopped.

Laurent waited, staring at the glowing, expecting to see the screen turn to black again for a second call to come in, but after a minute passed, nothing changed.

It was probably for the best. Laurent would not speak to Damen. He would not speak to _the vampire._ The vampire Damianos. He would not. He would not.

He was typing his number in with a thumb slow and clumsy.

He raised the icy phone to his ear, staring down at the street as he listened to the ringing, as he found himself begging Damen to answer, but also dreading it, because he had nothing to say. Damen had nearly killed him. Damen had fooled Laurent and nearly drained him of blood in front of his own apartment.

Damen answered on the second ring.

“Laurent,” he said. And Laurent was immediately taken aback by the quality of his voice. Something was wrong with him. “Are you alive?”

A prickle of fear trailed up his spine, and he took a moment to draw in a long, cold breath. “Yes…”

A sigh of relief. “Okay.”

“Why?”

“I- I can’t explain,” Damen said. It sounded vaguely like he may be driving. “I just need you to tell me something, okay?”

“Are you alright?” No, Laurent didn’t care if Damen was _alright._ Damen should be dead. Laurent should be devising specific plans to hunt and kill him. But something in him had urged him to ask. To know.

“Did you know about vampires…?” he asked without answering. “Before you met me?”

Laurent paused.

Suddenly, he was dreaming.

Blood, everywhere, a startling crimson swathe. Blood and blood and blood. Teeth that gnashed and tore within the dark, and claws that ripped and sliced. Screaming. Blood. Shadow. Blood. 

“No,” Laurent said quietly. “No, I did not.”

Damen was quiet for a moment.

“I’m sorry.” The words were achingly earnest. “For everything. I’m so sorry, Laurent.”

Laurent was not so keen on accepting a vampire’s apologies. “You nearly killed me.”

“I know.” He didn’t miss the faint increase of the trembling in Damen’s voice. “I was stupid. I thought I could handle shit, but I fucking can’t. I can’t, okay? I can’t be around human blood. I can’t… I… I can usually handle people… Non-bleeding, regular people. But you’re different. Why are you different?”

“I don’t know, Damianos. Where are you?”

He hardly explained. “I’m on my way home,” he said, voice thick.

Laurent’s lips parted as he began to answer, but the line went dead before he could. Damen had hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> i know this chapter was kind of late, im sorry!!! i won't abandon this fic, don't worry, i've just been mostly busy dealing with revising my original novel which has been... A LOT, lately. i wrote this chapter in like 2 days it literally possessed me?? i have most of this fic Roughly planned out, and we're about... halfway through? maybe? big maybe? big maybe. i love writing this story so much literally writing about vampires is my Passion.. i hope u guys are enjoying it too!!
> 
> also i got a new word processor? scrivener is ruining my life but also making it beautiful. before i used to use good ol open office which i still recommend to anyone wanting a decent word processor for $0


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